“Hell, no.”
Chad told him anyway, peppering in enough sappy details to make the granola bar he’d eaten threaten to make a repeat appearance. He’d finally managed to shut the kid up by sending him out to the far pasture to make sure the cattle had enough food and water.
Caden kept himself busy the rest of the morning and did his best to pretend he wasn’t regularly checking for activity in the house.
Despite her claim that he wasn’t going to chase her away, he’d half expected Lucy to pack up her compact rental car and take off for town. And as much as that would have simplified his life, he feared it would have also been a big disappointment.
He liked the way she stood up to him. He was accustomed to intimidating people with his size and silence and was a master at using both as an excuse to maintain his solitary lifestyle.
But after only a day and a half, Lucy’s presence on the ranch suited him in some strange way. Garrett had always warned him that being alone and being lonely were two distinct beasts. For the first time, Caden understood the message his dad was trying to convey.
Which was why he’d decided to take his lunch break in the main house. He could scrounge together a meal from the bunkhouse kitchen, but he could no longer resist the urge to check in on Lucy. Part of him hoped he’d find her lounging on the sofa reading a gossip magazine or doing her nails or whatever gold-digger daughters did when they were trying to pass the time.
Instead, as he walked into the house, the distinct smell of lemons and oil soap hit him. The cherry table that sat in the entry, the one that Tyson had told him came from his grandmother’s house in Kansas, gleamed in a way Caden had never seen before.
When Tyson and Caden were young, Garrett had hired a local woman to be at the house when they came home from school and he was out working. She made simple meals and did some light cleaning but had quickly tired of the two Sharpe boys’ antics and quit.
Garrett had immediately put both Tyson and Caden to work, giving them enough chores around the ranch to keep them exhausted and out of mischief. Caden still found plenty of trouble, despite Tyson’s efforts to keep him on a straight path. Garrett hired a housecleaning service to come through once a month, so even with three men living on the ranch, it was never too disgusting. Now Caden realized how much they’d been missing all those years without a woman’s touch.
He was even more shocked as he stepped into the living room to see Lucy balancing precariously on a kitchen chair that she’d pulled up to the edge of the brick fireplace surround. She was reaching out to place a string of holly across the picture hanging above the mantel.
The chair had two legs on the ground and two on the higher brick and teetered back and forth as she stretched forward. A sudden vision of Lucy crashing her head on the brick had his heart pounding.
“What the hell are you doing?” he bellowed as he rushed toward her.
Apparently yelling was the exact way to make his vision a reality. She gasped, then turned to him. As the chair rocked, she tumbled backward with a yelp.
Caden caught her before she landed, his heart racing as he hugged her tight to his chest. Immediately she squirmed in his arms and he set her away from him.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she demanded as soon as her feet hit the floor.
“Why would I need to when you were doing a fine job of it yourself?”
She shook the strand of holly in his direction. “I had everything under control until you scared the pants off me.”
“Hardly,” he muttered, taking in the fitted jeans that hugged her curves. She wore a flowing, flower-patterned blouse over them and her feet were bare. He took in the bright pink polish on her toes and his gut reaction felt akin to a matador waving a red flag in front of an angry bull.
He pointed to her feet. “You’re not wearing shoes.”
“Thanks for the news flash, Captain Obvious.”
“It’s the middle of December.”
“I’m in the house.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t like wearing shoes in the house.”
“You should put on socks.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Or slippers. Something.”
“Are my feet so offensive to you?”
He almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. On the contrary, her bare feet were some sort of peculiar, diabolical temptation. They made him want to see the rest of her body. To lay her across his bed and peel off her clothes until every inch of her was exposed for his eyes only.
Coupled with the way his body had roared to life just by holding her for a few seconds—her soft curves pressed to him—Caden was reminded why he’d slept in the barn last night.
“The chair was tipping,” he muttered instead of answering her question. “You were going to fall.”
She stared at him for a few moments, then let out a breath. “Hold it for me while I hang the holly.”
Without waiting for a response, she climbed onto the chair once more, and Caden gripped the top rail to keep it steady. Unfortunately, that put him at eye level with her perfectly rounded back end, and he forced his gaze away from her.
He didn’t understand why Lucy made him feel like a randy teenager instead of a full-grown man in control of his faculties. There was no control around her.
So instead he focused his attention on the rest of the room. The gaudy, over-the-top Christmas trimmings Maureen had strewed across every surface had been replaced with Julia Sharpe’s understated—and in many cases homemade—holiday decorations.
The bubble of happiness that rose in him, light and luminous, was a surprise. Something about seeing the house decked out in the Christmas finery he’d come to love over the years gave him a feeling of deep satisfaction. Caden would have never described himself as the sentimental type, and yet...
He took in the little folk Santas and the snowman candles that cheerily decorated the bookshelves. Across the back of the upright piano, Lucy had spread a quilted runner in checkered patterns of red and gold. She’d arranged the ceramic nativity scene that had always been Garrett’s pride and joy on top.
“You can change it if that’s not where it goes,” Lucy said softly. He jerked his head around and realized she’d finished with the holly and was standing next to the chair in front of him. “I know families have certain traditions about decorating. The nativity set looked right there to me, but—”
“It’s right,” he interrupted. “That’s where my dad always put it.”
She walked over to the piano and picked up one of the ceramic sheep. “I love how it’s painted. The details and color for each figure are perfect.”
“Julia painted it the Christmas before she was diagnosed with cancer.”
Lucy lifted her gaze to his, her whiskey-colored eyes gentle. “Julia was Garrett’s wife?”
He nodded. “She died a couple of months before I met Tyson. That’s why the counselor made him be my tour guide when I first came to Crimson Elementary. She thought we’d have something in common because neither of us had moms.”
“That’s a tragic common denominator,” Lucy whispered.
“Our situations were totally different, anyway. From everything I ever learned about Julia Sharpe, she was the perfect mother. The exact opposite of mine.” He moved forward and took the figure from her hand, returning it to its place on the back of the piano. “My first Christmas on the ranch, I was screwing around with the nativity scene and broke off the donkey’s ear.”
He ran a finger along the barely visible seam where Garrett had glued the animal back together. “I did a lot of stupid things when I was younger, especially when I was trying to test Garrett and see what it would take to make him send me away. But I’ve never seen him as angry as he was in that moment.”
“Do you really think he would have sent you away once he claimed you?”
He stilled and fisted his hand at his side. How could he admit that she’d just voiced his most secret fear? The one he couldn’t quite release?
Even after everything they’d been through and the love and devotion Garrett had shown him, Caden was still waiting for the day it all ended. He wondered if he’d ever be able to trust himself not to ruin the good things in his life.
“Your mother isn’t going to be happy that you took down her Pepto-Bismol-colored winter wonderland in here.”
She shrugged. “My mom means well, but Christmas is about tradition.” She laughed, as if surprised to hear those words out of her own mouth. “At least, that’s what I’m told.”
“You didn’t have traditions?” As much as he didn’t want to be curious about this woman, he couldn’t help wanting to know more about her.
“Not really. Nothing lasting.”
“Sort of like your mother’s three marriages,” he blurted before thinking about it.
He regretted the words immediately. Lucy’s gaze hardened and her full lips pressed into a thin line. She went to move past him, but he placed a hand on her arm.
“I’m sorry, Lucy.”
“I doubt that.”
“It’s the truth.” He bent his knees so he was at eye level with her. “I appreciate what you did in here.”
“I meant it as an olive branch,” she said, her gaze steady on his. “I’m not the enemy, Caden.”
He toyed with the idea of that for a moment and found that it felt right. True. “I know.”
“And neither is my mom,” she added.
He couldn’t allow himself to believe that but didn’t argue. For once in his damn life, he was tired of arguing.
“We need a tree,” he told her, gesturing to the box of ornaments still shoved in the corner. “There’s enough time to head up into the forest and get one now.”
“I thought you and your dad were going tree hunting when he got back.”
“He won’t mind if we take care of it.” Actually, Garrett would probably be thrilled if Caden and Lucy dealt with hauling a tree back from the forest surrounding the ranch. The old man had seemed to age decades since Tyson’s death. He could no longer spend long days working the ranch. After a few hours on horseback checking the fence line, Caden would often find that his father had retreated back to the house and his comfy chair in front of the fire.
It was difficult to know whether time or grief was the hardest on Garrett, but Caden imagined his father would appreciate a reprieve from their annual trip into the forest to cut down a tree.
She crossed her arms over her chest and studied him before answering. “I can’t decide if you’re extending your own olive branch or trying to lure me into the woods to have some kind of high-altitude Tony Soprano moment.”
Caden felt his mouth kick up and found it odd that even when she was challenging him, Lucy could make him smile more than he had in years. “Let’s call it an olive branch.” He lifted a brow. “For now, anyway.”
She laughed, as he’d hoped she would. “I’ll get ready.”
“Meet me out front in twenty minutes,” he told her, then cleared her throat. “Unless you need more time?” When he’d been with Becca, she’d taken close to an hour to get ready no matter what they had planned for the day. It still blew his mind that once upon a time he’d fallen for such a high-maintenance woman. And it made his stomach clench that he hadn’t realized the twisted game she was playing with him and his brother until it was too late.
Lucy only shook her head. “I just need to find warmer clothes. It won’t take long.”
He nodded, and she left the room. He waited until she was up the stairs before he blew out a breath. An olive branch or rope to string up his heart once again?
It was difficult to know exactly what he was offering when Lucy had his emotions so jumbled.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Lucy walked out onto the front porch. She shielded her eyes from the sun reflecting off the snow that blanketed the ground. Although the air was cold, the sky was a swath of brilliant blue as far as she could see.
The white-capped peak of Crimson Mountain loomed in the distance, like a benevolent ruler presiding over its kingdom.
“I definitely won’t lose you in that coat,” Caden called from where he stood in the gravel driveway.
Lucy smoothed a hand over the down jacket she’d found in her mother’s closet, the hue a shade of pink that seemed more appropriate for Miami Beach than the Colorado mountains.
“It’s the warmest thing I could find,” she answered and pulled the coordinating knit cap farther down around her ears.
She’d put on athletic leggings under her jeans to act as another layer of warmth and tucked her jeans into a pair of fleece-lined snow boots.
She’d told herself it didn’t matter how she looked because she wasn’t trying to impress Caden. Of course, that hadn’t stopped her from applying a fresh coat of gloss on her mouth. But only so her lips wouldn’t chap.
Not because she wanted Caden to notice them. Not because she couldn’t stop thinking about his mouth on hers the previous night.
But if she had been thinking about the kiss they’d shared, she’d have to admit she’d never felt anything like it. Lucy couldn’t remember ever responding to a man the way she had to Caden. The featherlight touch of his mouth had made her body zip to life like some kind of fancy race car with the pedal slammed to the floor. Then he’d deepened the kiss and the rush of desire made her feel as if she was hurtling over a cliff with no parachute.
At that moment she would have done anything he asked. She wanted everything he was willing to give, which scared the hell out of her. Wanting made her weak. Needing something she wasn’t meant to have was a sure path to heartache.
Only her finely tuned self-preservation skills had forced her to break away and retreat to the house. She’d lain in bed in the small guest room she occupied, waiting to hear his footsteps on the stairs, her body still humming with desire even as she recited in her head all the reasons Caden was bad news for her.
But when she’d awakened in the morning, early enough to watch the sky beginning to turn from gray to orange, something had pulled her out of bed and to the window just in time to see Caden walking from the barn, still wearing the same clothes as the night before.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one who realized how dangerous their connection could prove to be. She’d made coffee and a bowl of oatmeal, hurrying in case he made a morning appearance to get his own breakfast, but the house had remained quiet.
After a shower, she’d slipped into the chair behind Garrett’s oversize cherry desk in the second-floor office and powered up the computer. She’d spent the next couple of hours poring over ledgers and spreadsheets, increasingly baffled as to the ranch’s financial records.
She’d gotten her associate’s degree taking evening classes over a three-year span of time and had kept the books for the high-end boutique where she’d worked in Florida. Secretly she dreamed of going back to school for a full-fledged business degree, although how she’d find the time or the money to make that a reality wasn’t clear.
But while she’d always had a knack for numbers, the Sharpe Ranch books made her feel like a second grader struggling with the fundamentals of adding and subtracting. There were several spreadsheets dealing with day-to-day ranch operations, expenditures and income from hay and grain. Then she found the accounting records that covered Garrett’s other holdings, from business investments to a few high-level land development deals around Crimson.
Although some of the entries were recent, it was difficult to tell if the books seemed so convoluted because of her unfamiliarity with ranching business or because the record keeping had been ignored or mismanaged since Tyson’s death.
Eventually she’d walked
away from the computer, wandering to the window to gaze at the lone figure on horseback far out in the pasture. Her attraction to Caden made her feel like a lovesick schoolgirl, so she’d pushed away from the window and made her way downstairs, hoping to find something to distract her from thoughts of the handsome rancher.
Which was what had led her to switching out her mother’s tacky holiday decorations for the ones that clearly belonged in the cozy farmhouse. Normally Lucy didn’t mess with Christmas. She’d worked retail since she was sixteen, which meant she’d seen the best and the worst of the holiday spirit. She also knew the words to every corny seasonal song ever written and had put up and taken down more plastic trees than she cared to count.
But she’d long ago given up hope of being the recipient of any Christmas miracles. The holiday season was for working—waiting on impatient customers and helping others choose the perfect gifts for friends and loved ones while she preferred to spend her Christmas watching old movies and eating take-out Chinese from the carton.
Yet here she was walking toward Caden and what looked like the mountain version of a golf cart with a metal trailer hooked to the back. And those damn butterflies went crazy once more, both at the sight of Caden in his fitted jeans and Stetson and the thought of an adventure in the woods.
“You’ll appreciate the warmth when we get going,” he said, moving aside and opening the vehicle’s door for her. “It’s a perfect day and the UTV has heat but since the top’s open, the wind can get chilly when the sun starts to set.”
“UTV?” She arched a brow. “That sounds like something I’d make a doctor’s appointment to handle.”
Caden chuckled and shook his head. “Utility terrain vehicle,” he explained. “The path into the forest is too narrow for the truck.”
“Got it.” She climbed in and immediately the heat from the vents under the dashboard warmed her feet. A moment later Caden spread a heavy blanket over her legs. Lucy resisted the urge to sigh as he tucked it firmly under her thighs.
“It’s no fun out there if you’re half-frozen,” he told her.
Sleigh Bells in Crimson Page 6
